Tech

Venezuela might have the mannequins with the world’s biggest breasts, but Britain now has the most tech-savvy models gracing its store windows and shop floors.

This week three UK retailers launched the world’s first mannequins embedded with so-called iBeacons – little Bluetooth transmitters that can send alerts to smartphones in the vicinity, offering details about the clothes such as how to buy them online and where to find them in store. Read more

The start-ups that took on the taxi industry are eyeing a new target: public transport.

The past 24 hours have seen Uber, Lyft and Sidecar all launch a new twist on their popular ride-sharing model: carpooling. The three San Francisco companies are letting some customers opt to share a ride with a perfect stranger going along the same route at the same time, for up to half the price of a solo journey. Read more

Mr Béhar – whose designs can be seen in products from Jawbone, Puma and One Laptop Per Child – sat down with the FT to talk about the deal, the company he founded in 1999 and what happens next. The transcript has been edited for length. Read more

After the market closes on Tuesday, Apple releases its third quarter earnings for the three months to the end of June. Its stock price has risen by more than 20 per cent since it beat forecasts with its last quarterly numbers, taking it close to its-all time high. Can Apple repeat the trick in what are likely to be the last results before the next iPhones arrive, and push its stock to $100?

For the past year, new internet subscribers in the UK have had to make an “unavoidable choice”.

No, it’s not whether to pay for speeds of 152Mb per second, or whether to subscribe to Premiership football. It’s whether to turn on a “family-friendly network filter”, affectionately known as porn blockers.

Microsoft has joined Google in taking requests from European citizens who want embarrassing or sensitive results stripped from its search results, in response to the continent’s new “right to be forgotten” online. Read more

Big companies don’t usually like people messing with their logos. Whether it’s Apple sending cease-and-desist letters to supermarkets and cafes over their fruity icons, or itself being sued by the Beatles’ Apple Records, brands are fiercely protective of their marques.

Airbnb, despite being a $10bn company these days, is taking a rather different approach. As part of its rebrand unveiled on Wednesday, it is encouraging its customers to play with its new A-shaped icon and make it their own: tweak it, scribble it, put it on mugs and t-shirts. Read more

At a time when sensitivities over US government surveillance are at an all-time high and when Chinese smartphone manufacturers are taking on the iPhone like never before, there could be many ulterior motives for this latest attack.

Nonetheless, many iPhone owners outside China may also be surprised to know how much their device knows about where they have been – including its uncanny ability to guess where you live and work. Read more

CEOs love talking about the need for focus. But they’re not so good at picking things they’re not going to do as a result.

Satya Nadella has made a start. Five months after moving into the top job, he has finally admitted that the Xbox is not a core part of Microsoft’s business. What he hasn’t said yet is what he’s going to do with it. Read more

Venture capitalists are lining up to back bitcoin start-ups. On Monday, Xapo bagged some of Silicon Valley’s biggest names for its latest $20m round: Greylock’s Reid Hoffman and Index Ventures’ Mike Volpi, not to mention personal money from Max Levchin, Yuri Milner and Jerry Yang.

But all of this VC activity raises an interesting question. If these investors truly believe the crypto-currency will one day support a significant new financial services industry, why not just buy the currency and hold it? Read more

Uber is wasting little time in putting last month’s huge $1.2bn fundraising to work. As it races for marketshare against not-quite-so-well-funded rivals such as Lyft, it has been cutting prices for its cheapest service, UberX, in several markets including its largest, the San Francisco Bay Area.

The fare reduction is flagged as temporary, which may be just as well: Fortune discovered that Uber is losing money on every fare by paying drivers more than it charges passengers, in order to boost their earnings and prevent them from switching to a more lucrative rival. Read more

Facebook has created a new “missed call” product for advertisers in India, marking the first time that the social network has designed a special ad format for a single country.

When a mobile phone user clicks on one of the ads, it calls the advertiser and immediately hangs up. The advertiser returns the call with pre-recorded entertainment content and a marketing message – enabling the consumer to avoid paying data charges.

The news that Facebook manipulated its news feed to analyse the impact on users’ emotional expressions has angered many who believe they should have been told they were part of a psychology experiment.

The study of more than 689,000 Facebook users, conducted over a week in 2012, found those who were exposed to fewer positive stories in the feed were more likely to write negative posts and vice versa. People felt worried the billion plus social network was trying to manipulate their emotions, coming as it does after years of conflicts over privacy with the social network. Read more

Salesforce.com, the company that did more than any other to invent the software-as-a-service industry, is reaching a turning point.

After years of rapid growth, it has a pressing need for the more evolved infrastructure, processes and rounded management team of the large company it has become. And with growth starting to slow, it is coming closer to a seminal moment: when investors will start expecting it to report real profits, and not just on a pro-forma basis. The appointment of a new chief financial officer on Monday is the latest sign that is preparing for the changes. Read more

The US Supreme Court has rejected Google’s bid to limit the legal fall-out from the StreetView spying case.

In the process, it has also delivered its second decision in a week that interprets how the country’s privacy laws should apply when it comes to new technologies. Both times, it has come down on the side of stronger legal protections for the individual. Read more

Smart watches, TVs and cars featured prominently on Wednesday as Google laid out its plans for pushing its Android smartphone software into new fields. At its annual I/O developer event in San Francisco, “wearables” had pride of place, with news that the first smartwatches based on Android Wear are now on sale – before Apple unveils its much-anticipated iWatch. With Android TV and Android Auto, on the other hand, Google was playing catch up with Apple. The event pointed to how the battle for the next big tech markets beyond the smartphone will be fought. Richard Waters and Tim Bradshaw were at the Moscone Center for this round.

Archive

About the authors

Richard Waters has headed the FT's San Francisco bureau since 2002 and covers Google and Microsoft, among other things. A former New York bureau chief for the FT, he is intrigued by Silicon Valley's unique financial and business culture, and is looking forward to covering his second Tech Bust.

Chris Nuttall has been online and messing around with computers for more than 20 years. He reported from the FT's San Francisco bureau on semiconductors, video games, consumer electronics and all things interwebby from 2004 to 2013, before returning to London.

Tim Bradshaw is the FT's digital media correspondent, and has just moved from London to join our team in San Francisco. He has covered start-ups such as Twitter and Spotify, as well as the online ambitions of more established media companies, such as the BBC iPlayer. He also covers the advertising, marketing and video-game industries. Tim has been writing about technology, business and finance since 2003.

Robert Cookson is the FT's digital media correspondent in London. He
covers digital enterprise in media, from the music industry to local newspapers and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. A former Hong Kong markets correspondent, he is interested in the interplay
between old media and new technologies.

Hannah Kuchler writes about technology and Silicon Valley from the FT's San Francisco bureau. She covers social media including Facebook and Twitter and the dark and mysterious world of cybersecurity. Hannah has worked for the FT in London, Hong Kong and New York, reporting on everything from British politics to the Chinese internet.

Sarah Mishkin in a correspondent in San Francisco, where she covers payments, e-commerce, and political news on the West Coast. Prior to California, she has worked as an FT reporter in New York, London, Abu Dhabi, Hong Kong, and most recently in Taiwan, where she covered Chinese internet companies, semiconductors, and tech supply chains.